Cheap Meals: How to stretch your dollar.

Cooking on a budget can be a challenging task, but you can still eat healthy with cheap meals.

With a few tricks you can come out of the store with some healthy foods without damaging your bank account. If you're cooking on a budget, you definitely have to plan ahead of time, have a grocery shopping list with you, and make sure you have eaten before you go shopping. Why? because if you go into a grocery store famished, you'll walk out of there with some foods that you weren't planning on buying. And you end up spending more than you had planned to.

So arm yourself with a grocery shopping list.

Here are some simple tips to save money when shopping:

Buy foods in bulk, because bulk foods are cheaper than buying smaller quantities.

For fruits and vegetables check out your local Farmer’s Market, you can usually get produce for a lot less when you buy directly from farmers.

Check out the specials in those junk mail newspapers you get in the mail or your local newspaper, they normally run ads for grocery store specials.

A lot of times grocery stores have 2 for 1 specials. If you know ahead of time what you need, then you can spot the sales easier.

And plus Sunday edition of your local newspaper always have tons of coupons you can use as well. I try to shop at dollar stores for household products, so I can save money that way I have more for healthy foods.